Archive for the ‘Frazz’ Category

Today was Mother’s Day, and being the good son that I am, I had my mother (and my mother-in-law) over for a cookout. I made burgers, hot dogs, and kielbasa, and my wife cut up a cantaloupe, seasoned a few ears of corn, and made a bowl of guacamole. It was a nice, relaxing day, and while we listened to parts of two baseball games on the radio, we never hit the diamond ourselves to field grounders. Thanks to our restraint, I avoided getting hit in the crotch with a baseball and never felt my eyes pop out of my head like the man in this strip. Thank goodness, and Happy Mother’s Day!

1878? Bottled milk was first delivered in 1878? For some reason, I thought milkmen roamed the earth long before then. I’m particularly surprised that the English, with their vast empire, their sophisticated approach to farming, and their insatiable lust for tea, hadn’t launched a milk delivery service prior to the industrial revolution. Apparently, they hadn’t, which means generations of thirsty Londoners had to either go to the store for milk or beg and plead with their country cousins to bring them cool bottles of the stuff.

This strip is certainly inventive in its depiction of a game of HORSE. It’s also wrong. In HORSE, a player is tagged with a letter after he misses a shot that his opponent just made. The shortest possible game of HORSE consists of 10 attempts, alternating between two players: hit, miss, hit, miss, hit, miss, hit, miss, hit, miss. But that’s not what’s shown here. What’s shown here is miss, hit, miss, hit, miss, hit, miss, hit, miss, hit. A game of HORSE can’t end on a made basket since the other player would be given a chance to match that basket. Sure, it’s unlikely the kid in this strip would make a shot after missing five in a row, but he should at least be given a chance.

I am the proud owner of a bread machine…that I never use. To be fair, I used it once and was quite pleased with the results. There’s nothing I like more than fresh bread with a small pat of melted butter on top and I was proud to have made my very own loaf. That was three years ago. I’m not proud of the fact that my bread machine has lingered at the back of a cabinet since then, but I justify my neglect by noting that sliced bread is really, really convenient. It may not be the best thing man’s invented, but it’s up there.

The walls in my house are still relatively bare, and will remain that way for months to come. My wife and I don’t plan to hang anything on the walls until we’ve painted them, which won’t happen until next spring at the earliest. That said, it’s never too early to think about decor, and the more creative (i.e. less expensive) the decor, the better. The möbius strip featured in today’s Frazz would make a fine addition, especially if we alternated between blank summer weeks and photographs of ourselves enjoying those weeks. Maybe that way, our summers really could last forever.

Call me un-American, if you will, but I’ve never been a fan of apple pie. In fact, I’ve never been a fan of apples. The only way I can eat red apples is to peel them and slather them with peanut butter. The only way I can eat green apples is to saute them and serve them with pork chops. But baking either of them in a pie with ungodly amounts of cinnamon? No, thank you. Cherries, on the other hand, are a personal favorite of mine. I can eat them by the handful or baked into a flaky, delicious crust (with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, of course). I won’t pretend cherry pie is as American as apple pie, but it is delicious. So my patriotism takes a hit because of my food choices. At least I still like baseball (and yes, my mother, too).

It’s been almost a year since I’ve biked to work, a fact that has little to do with my initiative and much to do with the fact that my commute is now twice as long as it used to be. When I was renting an apartment, I could afford to live close to downtown. Now that I’m a homeowner, I’ve found that the more reasonable houses come coupled with less reasonable commutes. Maybe one day I’ll hop on my bike and trek the nine miles from my home to my office. In the meantime, I’ll probably start by riding to the train in the morning. That’s only one mile, and cycling down a side street is definitely more pleasant than standing and waiting for the bus.